What I learned today – 1

Sometimes in waiting for the grand idea to share I forget to say some of what did happen today, small things, the work as it’s unfolding learning to be present to the time. As things go, they’re connected with a theme, much of which today happens to be around Visibility.

Early in the morning, sitting with myself, I noticed that visibility is different from vulnerability. I often experience vulnerability as a fear of visibility. Visibility requires a courage, a courage to connect to what we love without looking back, without caring how it’s received. To love what we love and do what we do just because. Vulnerability as I experience it, is often about trying to make excuses for myself. It’s practicing the subtle arts of self-protection. Paradoxically, that kind of vulnerability leaves me aloof and alone while visibility really does risk something but feels exhilarating. In the willingness to be visible we show ourselves willing. I’m often interested in how other people show themselves in an unguarded way and I think it’s part of how truth comes into the world.

Later in the morning, I was talking with my friend Vihra (Dincheva) with whom I host an online call 2nd and 4th Thursdays. We get together before hand and see what’s alive for us before each call and today what came was this: we thought this Thursday’s call could invite the question, “how do you feel about expressing differences you imagine you have with others, and what do you do with that?” How do you navigate visibility in other words. I find that having a question that is alive for us helps us be genuinely curious about what will happen, rather than trying to stage something. Then it’s OK for things to go where they will. You can read about Thursday’s call here. Here is the link: https://zoom.us/j/199240841

Around supper time, I spoke to a participant in my Hello Climate Change! pilot project and she introduced the idea that climate change brings up cognitive dissonance in her. (Cognitive dissonance is the mental state of holding two contradictory ideas . . . or in the case of climate change, two different worldviews, one with climate change in it and the world’s normal view where it isn’t, not really.) While it’s not pleasant, she was willing to experience that and identify it and do something with it. There are huge gulfs in our world and the ability to navigate them fearlessly is a central skill for today. I also learned and liked to hear, that the group was challenging and not avoiding of the issue, but also invited more. Thank you you-know-who-you-are, for the feedback and the feedforward.

Lastly, I felt, remembered, learned again, through simple meditation, that the foundation for work on oneself, and for we-spaces, is an inner practice in which we feel the nameless force that’s active in the world and in us.

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